Second Trip-South America/longitude & latitude

For our very first globe-trotting trip, we grabbed our newly processed and completed passports, buckled up in my magic van that can fly, and travelled to South America. Before departing however, we did locate the continent on the globe and the map. We noted some of the countries we would be visiting: Brazil, Bolivia, Guyana, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador.

While in South America, we enjoyed an activity to help us learn about latitude and longitude.

First, I had the kids stand in a circle and I tossed them a ball with a sticker dot on it, asking them to describe where that sticker dot was. They soon figured out that this was a bit difficult, just as it would be to describe where on earth you were if you were lost at sea and needed to communicate your exact location so you could be rescued. Thus, we need to have imaginary lines on our maps and globes: latitude and longitude.

I handed the kids some yarn. Two at a time, they laid across the sanctuary (we moved there to create our imaginary globe-just more room!) different colored strings of yarn to represent the Equator (red yarn), the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn (orange), The Arctic and Antarctic Circle (blue). Then we laid out purple yarn running up and down to represent the Prime Meridian/International Date Line. Tips I gave your kids to help them remember which imaginary lines go across the globe and which go up and down around the globe, were to think of latitude as (F) latitude and it is a LONG way up to the Empire State Building, hence LONGitude goes up and down.

Since South America is a producer and grower of many things such as vanilla, chocolate, pineapples, avocado, corn, peanuts, tomatoes, and potatoes, I brought in a few samples: I cut up some pineapple, some avocado, and after getting our passports stamped, we enjoyed some yummy food, including a piece of chocolate. :)

Our 10:30 class had a bit of a treat. Miss Susan, a friend, and fellow OBX parent, had recently travelled to Nicaragua, so she offered to come in and share her experience and knowledge, especially with chocolate.:D First she showed us some pictures of the cocoa plant-it's kind of orangy/pinkish red-that was a surprise! Susan explained the process of how cocoa beans become chocolate. She even brought us some raw cocoa beans, and let the kids take turns grinding them! (See pics!) She even brought the kids in some beans to taste (they were a bit bitter for most of the kids), but she also brought in some yummy fair-trade chocolate and explained the difference between fair-trade chocolate and Hershey's chocolate. :)

Either way, our class trip ended with chocolate! YUM! Special thanks to Susan for taking the time to come share with us and feeding us delicious chocolate!

Next week, it's off to France!